Cutest Thing Ever

I have written about my young friend, Anna, who is a waitress at the local steak house. The place is noisy. It's one of those places with the peanuts on the table and peanut shells on the floor. People with peanut allergies have to drive on the other side of the freeway for fear of getting a waft of peanut dust in the wind. The manager cranks up the music at every half hour and the waitstaff has to do one of those line dance performances, clapping their hands and yee-hah-ing like they are having the best time of their life. I call it the lifeless zombie dance. Their faces are flat. They are moving on auto pilot. Step left, step right, clap**clap**clap*clap*clap, doing this for the dollar cuz I don't give a crap**crap**crap*crap*crap.

But I tolerate the noise and the dancing interruption because I enjoy talking about life and food with Anna. Since they usually only assign the staff two tables, we have a fair amount of time between guests and courses to visit. My first rule is "take care of all your other customers first" and my second rule is to limit my time. I know the owners want the tables to turn as fast as possible for maximum profit.

On this particular night she was asked to cover a third table. Sitting in the booth was a father and a son. The boy looked to be about nine years old. He was adorable with curly black hair, and he was sporting a cast and crutches.

Anna checked on them several times. I could hear giggling, so I knew she was having fun with him. On one of her trips over I heard him say, "Check, please." She responded by asking, "Oh. Are you paying for dinner? That's really nice of you. I'll be right back." He was practically dancing with glee in his seat.

Before she returned with the check, the father gave his son the money to pay for dinner. Anna presented him the check and he flashed the cash. He was blushing and giggling. She brought him his change and told him, "Thank you sir. I enjoyed waiting on you and hope you come again."

If he could have, he would have floated out of the building.

How many of you said         Awe, how cute . . . .